“You had no right to my house. What’s worse is you weren’t even trying to do right by your unborn child—you were just stealing from me. You and Brooks!” Emmie raged. “You plotted and schemed behind my back. You fed him poison about me.”
“I just made him wake up and see you for who you really are—a dumpy, boring, piss-poor excuse for a woman and a horrible wife!” Oakley screeched at Emmie. “I’d say you were a horrible mother, but I know you can’t get pregnant. You’re defective. That’s why your husband left you. That’s why he didn’t want you. You can’t do the one basic thing any woman should.”
“Brooks didn’t want you either!” Emmie raged, tears in her eyes. “He was sleeping with at least two other women, probably more! You weren’t special to him. He didn’t like you, Oakley. He didn’t love you. He didn’t want a future with you. He was just using you for sex. The fact that he needed other affair partners tells me that you weren’t even any good at it.”
Oakley jumped up. “Shut the fuck up! I’m not you. I don’t get cheated on.”
“Admit it! Admit you murdered Brooks. Admit you faked the pregnancy. Admit it!”
I grabbed Emmie around the waist before she could lunge at Oakley.
“You and your fake baby!”
“Someone call the police! A pregnant woman is about to be killed by the cupcake murderer!” Theo bellowed to the crowd.
This was out of control. I should have had more self-discipline and not taken a match to this stick of dynamite.
“You ruined my life.” Emmie was sobbing in my arms as I tried to restrain her from going after Oakley.
Moose darted through the crowd and launched himself at Oakley’s belly.
Theo yelled obscenities, swatting at the cat with his napkin as Moose sank his claws into Oakley’s belly. Instead of screams of pain, Oakley cursed as the pregnancy belly started to slide down her hips.
“It’s the devil!”
One man fainted.
Theo was red-faced.
“Proof!” Emmie raged. “This is proof that Oakley is a murderer. And you’re in on it, too, Abbott.”
“No, I—”
“We saw you. Marius and Isawyou two sneaking off into a cabin to fuck. You have proof of the murder—I know you do.Give it to me, Abbott.” Emmie threw me off. “What do you have on Oakley?”
Abbot raced to hide behind me as Emmie chased him around the dining room while Oakley, shirt torn, tried to disentangle Moose from the fake pregnancy belly.
“Okay, okay!” Abbott said, breathing hard.
“Wait—you have proof Oakley murdered Brooks?” I asked, unable to keep the shock out of my voice.
Abbott squirmed. “Well, no… but I do have proof of the fake pregnancy.”
Moose was now dragging his kill proudly through the dining room, tail held high as several people told him what a good cat he was, yes, he was, and so handsome too.
“We don’t need proof. I already know she’s lying about the pregnancy,” Emmie said, fixated on him. “We need proof of the murder.”
“How about estate fraud?” Abbott winced.
“Don’t you dare,” Theo warned. “What he’s about to say is lies, and furthermore, I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Yes, you did!” Oakley screeched. “It was your stupid plan!”
“They needed a baby,” Abbott explained, “and so I said that my parents didn’t want to take my druggie sister’s preemie because they already had five of her kids, and Oakley could adopt the baby then rehome it once she had Brooks’s money in hand.”
“But the paternity test…”
Abbott’s shoulders sagged. “The newspaper isn’t doing all that well. Print media is dying. I had to get a part-time job at the local lab. Svensson PharmaTech hires night contractors because they have a backlog of tests from a company they just purchased. Including paternity testing. I could fake the test results.”
